


To Stay Alive

by the-eagle-of-masyaf (Dunkelherz)



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Angst, Complete, Drama, F/M, Flashbacks, Holocaust, Oneshot, PTSD, Romance, Sex, Sexual Content, Triggers, sensual
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-24
Updated: 2012-08-24
Packaged: 2017-11-12 19:09:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/494683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dunkelherz/pseuds/the-eagle-of-masyaf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She felt ready, ready for everything he might give to her. She knew she would follow him no matter where his way would lead her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Stay Alive

"The wounds of your childhood still aren't healed, are they?"

His gaze hovered empty over her head and she didn't need Charles power to know what kind of movie was playing behind his eyes at this moment. The pain was carved deep into his face and it almost tore her heart apart to see him like that. The hard mask of hate and anger melted and all that was left was the wounded child that had seen too much. She believed to know, but she knew that she would never grasp the whole meaning of his past, that she would never know what they had broke within him. Some might think that he was the monster, but she knew better. At a place where humanity had no longer existed the child never had a real chance – but it were moments like these where she recognized that the child within him was still alive.

"It's not over yet", was all that he replied and the pain showed clearly in his voice.

Her fingers drove carefully over his arm, only the ghost of a touch as her hand took his and she carefully removed the fabric that covered his arm. Her thumb stroke over the numbers that had been deep engraved into his skin with black ink. She could feel how his muscles tensed under her touch and for a split second she thought he would yield. But he didn't pull his arm away and his gaze fell upon the combination of numbers as her wild eyes were locked onto his face.

"Every night you wake up." It wasn't a question and her eyes met his. "Your breathing's racing as you would try to run away from death itself. Every night." Her thumb came to a still over his pulse and she felt how his heartbeat increased. "Fear lays still upon you like a shadow. Even now when he's dead."

He took a deep breath and hold it for a moment before he let the air out again. Dark clouds pulled by on the sky as they exposed the moon and the silver light broke through the window and laid his face in deep shadows. "Shaw was only the beginning." He pulled his arm abruptly away and stood up. The springs of the bed creaked under the sudden loss of weight. She could no longer see his face as he stood in front of the window, his hands crossed behind his back. He was only a few feet away but she had the feeling as he was at the other end of the world – miles away from her. She suddenly felt the cool of the night so much more on her naked body and goosebumps spread over her arms.

"Only the beginning?", she repeated his words as she stared on the empty place next to her before her gaze pierced into his back. "We can find them, Erik. Every single one of them. Let them pay for what they did to you." His shoulders trembled and for a moment she didn't know if he was crying, but only a few seconds later she could make out his faint laugh.

"No. They're all dead. All of the doctors and officers. Shaw was the last one."

She didn't understand but before she could open her mouth for another question, he turned around and the light of the moon made his skin look pale.

"It'll happen again, Raven. It's happening right now. They see us as a threat. They're afraid because of the power we have. They'll find us, herd us together like cattle to slaughter us." She could see how the memories displaced the hate on his face and new pain was born. His voice was trembling as he spoke again:

"I will never meet my fate that helpless again."

In one liquid elegant movement she stood up and with light steps she broke the distance that parted them. Her arms found his shoulders as her body was pressed against his. She took a deep breath and smelled his scent, a scent that was so familiar to her by now. She felt his muscles work under her hands as he started to move to guide her back to the bed, before her legs touched the mattress and she slowly lowered herself back upon it. He was over her and the springs of the bed protested once again under their weight. His face hovered only inches over hers as he used his elbows to her left and right shoulder to push himself up and one of his legs gently pushed hers apart.

"Will you tell me about it? Your past?", she asked him and her voice was only a whisper. With a deep sigh he rolled onto his left body-side and pulled her with him so she could rest her head upon his shoulder as he could hold her within his arms.

"Which part of it, Raven?" He paused for a moment and she thought he wouldn't continue, but he did: "About the time in the ghetto where I experienced how long it takes for a person to starve?" His voice sounded bitter and she had to close her eyes to prevent the tears from falling. "Or about the time in the concentration camp – as they experimented not only with me but with the others too. Maybe about the day where they tried to make one person out of two by exposing their spinal cord while they were consciousness and... No, about Shaw and how he tried to figure out a way to push my power even more – mostly he used pain to-"

"Stop", her voice cracked and was choked by her tears. "So much cruelty." A trembling hand touched his face. "Why, Erik?"

"Because they were afraid of us. Just like now, Raven. But it's not the Jews they're afraid of."

Her fingers found the fabric of his sweater just above his shoulder and they curled into it as if she would try not to fall into the abyss of humanity. She knew that he spoke the truth. The attack they had experienced on the beach, as supposed enemies had joined forces because they saw a threat in them; they, who'd only tried to help. It was the moment where she'd finally understood that Charles's idea could no longer be reality – it would never be possible for mutants and humans to live peacefully side by side. Not as long as fear existed. The raw violence that had hit them in form of missiles rattled her believes. She suddenly knew that she didn't need Erik's experience to understand that they could never let it get that far. Charles decision was to hide among humans and she had followed him and hadn't realized that it weren't her looks that had made her suffer but the fear about what could happen if somebody found out about her secret – and it was Charles who'd fed this fear even though not on purpose. No, Charles, who was like a brother to her, only wanted her safety. He wanted to protect her, wanted to protect her against anything that might come now that the humans knew that mutants like her and Erik existed.

She felt his fingers stroking over her cheek to caught the tears that had started to fall. He gently lifted her chin to look into her eyes and as his lips found hers the cold feeling of fear turned into a wave of heat that started to spread through her body to the points of her toes.

She freed herself from his arm that was still holding her to sit upon his hips and her hands found the rough fabric of the black turtleneck sweater that he wore. She pushed it slowly up until he rose his arms to get rid of it.

"Are you afraid?", she whispered as she lowered her body onto his so her ear could rest right above his heart and she could hear how it begun to beat faster.

"Every night when I wake up.", was his low reply and the tips of his fingers danced over her back, tracing the line of her spine, so gently that the touch was almost like that of a feather. Her back arched as she tried to seek more of his touch; a touch she wanted to lose herself into.

"We're on the run, aren't we?", she asked and her voice sounded breathless as one of his hands brushed over her rips.

"Yes", he whispered into her ear as his tongue found the skin just above her throat.

"Erik." She closed her eyes to lose herself a little bit longer in the feeling that he created before she wriggled herself out of his embrace to use her hands to hold herself up. She looked into his half-closed eyes.

"Was it our decision?"

"Never", was his reply and the hardness was back in his voice. "We've never made this decision. That was them."

The memory of the day as they had fought on the beach crawled its way back into her mind and suddenly the coldness was back. She saw Erik in front of her as he kept the missiles away from hitting them and she saw Charles as he desperately tried to prevent Erik from destroying the military frigate. They had fought for the welfare of mankind, they had prevent world war three and worse – and still they had pulled their weapons against them. No, it wasn't them who had made the first move, it had been the humans.

I was at the mercy of men who just followed orders – never again.

His words echoed in her head. Erik had decided to act, not to be at the mercy of his fate. And she just had followed him. She had hide for far too long, that she knew now better than ever before. It had been Erik's words that had freed her from her prison. Never again she wanted to be a prisoner of her own fear and still it was all that she could feel right now. Their fight had just begun and Raven didn't know how it would end.

The back of his hand brushed from her shoulder over her back till the backside of her thigh – the touch alone was enough to pull her away from her thoughts. Still, as she looked into his face, she knew it was the right decision. She felt secure and safe and for the first time in her life she felt completely accepted for what she really was.

The feeling of desire started to flare like a fire through her body. The cold of the night and the fear was gone as her hands found the buckle of his belt and started to open it quickly. Before she continued she stopped and her eyes met his.

"Is it wrong?", she asked him and the feeling of guilt collapsed like a wave over her. Maybe she wasn't ready to make these decisions. Was it right to stand by Erik's side? Yes. But was it the right one? She didn't know. Charles had let her go because he knew how deep the feeling of betrayal run inside her. She could have stayed by his side, she could have sit next to his bed and take care of him. But after all these years they had shared their life's she wasn't there. Instead she was in bed with the man who had stood up against Charles and the humans. She felt bad, like an animal driven by instinct.

"It was necessary", was his answer and his hands played her body like an instrument. A moan escaped her lips and for a split second she felt the shame. It wasn't too long ago that he had called her body perfect. Never before had anybody said that. Charles knew that she had suffered by her looks and he had fed those thoughts, had poked the fear further. It had been easy for him to adapt, to live an ordinary life among the humans. But she, she had to wear a mask every god damn day, had to hide for something she shouldn't be afraid of. Her world was black and white, a grey didn't exist. It was still a strange feeling to share the bed with a man who desired her true form and her true self, who didn't speak of a mistake when his fingers touched her blue skin and who saw true beauty as he looked into her bright yellow eyes.

Her hands took a hold of the waistband of his pants and with the look of a predator her eyes were focused upon him. He pushed himself up and slid along the bed to rest fully upon it as she withdraw his clothes before she bent down again. It was difficult to control her breathing and she could hear her blood rushing as his arms closed around her as she was lost to his touch.

"The only question is", he murmured into her ear as his hands stroke from her collar bone over her flat belly further down and for a single moment she hold her breath, "if you want to live free or if you don't."

A wave of desire was triggered within her and it seemed as lust was eating her alive as she pressed herself against his fingers and everything in her screamed yes – yes to life. His breath touched her throat like a hot blaze and it became difficult to think. In those moments she felt so alive like never before. It seemed that Erik caused something inside her that no man before had done and it wasn't only desire, not only lust, not the want. In those moments she felt alive, beautiful and ready to fight. All the sacrifices she had made, that she was still going to made were worth it if she just could feel this completely every day. The fear shrunk to a small knot at the back of her head, so small that she could almost forget it and everything that remained, everything that was important right now was the man beneath her hands and the life that she could feel running through her body.

"To be free", she whispered as she bent down and her lips found his ear, "I want to be free."

She had the feeling that his hands would burn her. She looked into his face and she saw the lust that she felt. She didn't know if he wanted her as much as she wanted him. His face was soft, the hardness of his past was gone and replaced by desire. If she looked at him like that, she knew that they hadn't destroyed everything back then. She didn't know if it was love or lust that let him act the way he did. But it wasn't important, the only thing important was Erik and that he had still the desire within him despite what he had experienced in the past. And it was passion that made him so alive in every single way. She knew it was hate that had let him survive, that it was hate what had made him strong enough to find those responsible for torturing him as a child – and it was this power that gave him the passion to claim her body. She felt as if she was at the mercy of his hands and gaze and she wanted that only her body, that only she could trigger this passion. He wield a power over her that she was willing to submit to.

"Erik", she whispered his name as her nails found his shoulders as he closed his arms around her and together they found a sitting position. She felt ready, ready for anything he could give her. She knew she would follow him, no matter where his way would lead her. Nobody could ever accept her so completely as he did and for a moment the thought of it triggered a little bit of pain inside her. All those years that she had spent lonely even though her brother had always been by her side, he still couldn't give her what she needed so much.

Safety.

She felt how he started to move underneath her and with every movement of his hips the spiral of ecstasy brought her higher. Her breathing was shallow and short and as she pressed herself against him, she could hear the sounds of lust coming deep from his throat and she was certain that he enjoyed to be with her as much as she did with him.

When they were one, she had the feeling as if she could fight against the whole world as long as he was by her side. She felt the pressure built deep inside her and with every thrust she had the feeling that she was brought closer to the edge. As the fall into the abyss came it felt like salvation and she collapsed on top of him, exhausted, floating and free. The waves of her orgasm still run through her body as she realized that her lover was still holding back, that he still wasn't satisfied. She looked deep into his eyes as she changed her position before one of her hands crept between their bodies. Her fingers found his flesh and at first, her ghostly touches drove him almost mad before her grip became stronger and her movements faster. She watched how his head fall back and he closed his eyes as his semen poured over her fingers and hand.

Powerless, he fell back and pulled her with him. For long moments they laid like this until their breathing became normal again and the sweat on their skin had dried. The feeling of exhaustion covered her like a blanket and she felt the fatigue in her bones. The sound of his steady breathing and heartbeat seduced her to give into sleep.

"Maybe,", she said finally and her words were only murmured and her eyes were closed, "your wounds will fade to scars one day."


End file.
